Find out who you are, and do it on purpose. – someone, I forget who

Has it really been two weeks since I last blogged? Wow… that was the day after my internship at Patch abruptly ended a week early. I was sad, of course, but in many ways, the extra week has been a blessing. I had time to write on my own work, do some more planning on my senior project (which is still very much in planning stages…), practice cello, and hang out with my friends. So I guess I don’t have a whole lot to blog about. But I will anyway. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

– having coffee with Kendall, the local editor of the Mercer Island Patch. He kept me informed about what’s going on with the company, plus we had great discussions about reporting on the Island.

– having coffee/lunch/dinner with several other friends from home, a great chance to just talk about life.

– going to Wild Waves and a Switchfoot concert there to celebrate my friend Kaleb’s birthday

– having an informational interview with a woman who works for the same company as my mom in corporate communications. She wanted to be a journalist when she was younger but is equally happy in corp. comms. I certainly haven’t ruled out this career choice.

– played a small cello house concert at my home. It was a small affair; three friends from high school came, plus my former cello teacher and my aunt, uncle, cousin, her boyfriend, and my grandma. I played as well as I could and feel well-prepared for orchestra auditions because doing this motivated me to practice. Cello also became a haven for me to forget about all of the junk that was going on at work. That will probably be true for the rest of my life.

– packing and keeping in touch with my roommate and friends who are living across the hall (whom I will see tomorrow!)

– flying out to Minneapolis-St. Paul for 3 days. We had some great times there, including going to a Twins game (they’re not very good…), walking along the Mississippi River, going to the MN State Fair (where they eat everything on a stick), visiting my parents’ old friends Doug and Betty who are always a hoot, and stopping in Northfield to visit my friend Ngaire from LSM, who goes to St. Olaf College.

Now I’m in Rochester, MN, which is approximately halfway between Minneapolis and Decorah, IA. We’ll leave before 8 a.m. tomorrow morning to get there by 9, get my room keys and move into College Apartments. My roommate, Laura, will be there about that time as well. I think it shouldn’t be too difficult, as I’ll bring in stuff gradually from storage instead of all at once. And it won’t be so hot either, knock on wood. The heat was a bit of a shock when we arrived but has diminished since then. It could be worse. I’m just trying to readjust to the Midwest again.

The good news is that I’m not stressed about school, or anything right now. I have faith that I can accomplish everything I’ve set forth for myself, because it’s all things I want to do. It’s weird – last year I signed up for a lot of things that I was also very excited to do, yet I got way more stressed/emotional. Of course, there are other factors which contributed to that which no longer exist, but I won’t go into that. This summer helped me a great deal with figuring out myself and where I best fit career-wise, which I think I lost sight of during junior year. With the way senior year is set up, that will not happen. I’m going to have fun and be productive, hopefully at the same time. (Famous last words? We’ll see!)